Camerimage 2016 video interviews

Watch ARRI's video interviews with some of the cinematographers who had films or music videos in competition at this year's Camerimage festival.

Alongside its other activities at Camerimage 2016, which included running a technology booth, hosting master classes and seminars, and presenting a Big Screen event, ARRI took the time to film interviews with some of the cinematographers attending the festival.

Camerimage 2016: David Procter

London-based DP David Procter discusses shooting with ALEXA Mini on the music video for the DJ Shadow track NOBODY SPEAK, featuring Run the Jewels.

British DP David Procter spoke to ARRI about his work on the music video for the DJ Shadow track NOBODY SPEAK, featuring Run the Jewels, which suggests socio-political undertones by counterpointing the visuals and the lyrics.

"We wanted to shoot up to 200 fps, so the ALEXA Mini was the perfect choice," says Procter. "We also wanted to be quite physical, so I could get in there with the camera, and the form factor was fantastic for that. I was able to really move quickly within the space and be very agile...Music video budgets have declined massively over the last 10 years...having multiple cameras on a music video is not that common and it's very advantageous to have a tool that can do everything we need in one package."

Lighting the cavernous set was a challenge, which Procter overcame with the help of a number of ARRI fixtures. "We had two ARRI M90s, six ARRI 6K PARs and an 8K balloon...for the wider parts we couldn't get the right contrast with soft light; we needed to use harder sources, so the M90s really came into effect."

Camerimage 2016: Simon Duggan ACS

Cinematographer Simon Duggan ACS speaks to ARRI at Camerimage 2016 about why he chose ALEXA for the Mel Gibson WWII drama HACKSAW RIDGE, and how he developed different looks for the peacetime and battle scenes.

Simon Duggan ACS was the cinematographer on Mel Gibson's harrowing WWII feature HACKSAW RIDGE, which was selected for the festival's main competition. The film tells the remarkable tale of Desmond Doss, an American combat medic whose pacifism prevented him from carrying a weapon, but whose courage under fire won him a Medal of Honor -- the first for a conscientious objector.

"When the director Mel Gibson and I got together, we talked about how we were going to approach the film," says Duggan. "It's a true story and what we found was that there was a lot of combat cameramen who shot in Okinawa, so we had real footage to work from...The basic idea was to have a bit of color in the opening part of the film and to desaturate the color through the battle scenes. I'm a big fan of the ALEXA, which is why I chose it. I love the highlights and I love the skin tones you get from the camera, which is unlike any other digital camera."

Camerimage 2016: Mattias Rudh FSF

Working entirely with the ALEXA Mini, cinematographer Mattias Rudh FSF created an eerie, deep-focus look for the Jamie XX music video GOSH, directed by Romain Gavras. He discussed his visual approach with ARRI at Camerimage 2016.

DP Mattias Rudh FSF was at Camerimage with his music video for the Jamie XX track GOSH, directed by Romain Gavras. The video stars over 300 Chinese teenagers with dyed blond hair, recruited from a Shaolin Kung Fu school. It was filmed in Tianducheng, a bizarre recreation of Paris in China, complete with a 354' replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Rudh shot the video entirely with the ALEXA Mini: "It felt like it was the fastest way to move around, because we had the drone, a Movi and also a Scorpio crane, and I wouldn't have to re-balance stuff," he says. "ARRI is always the first choice, whether it's 35 mm, 16 mm or digital. The Mini you can work with in any way; I prefer the AMIRA when I'm doing traditional shoulder work -- it's the stability, the texture and the way you can work with LUTs...you can load a lot of LUTs into the camera and get exactly what you want."